Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Here are the authors to watch for

The Private Eye Writers of America have announced the nominations for the Shamus Awards for 2010. My favorite category is Best First P.I. Novel because some of these nominees in the past have become the stars of the genre. I make it a point to find and read each nominated book each year. This year we have a Tinseltown private eye, a sexy Bronx sleuth, a Scottish P.I., a Newark gumshoe, and a New York shamus. The winner will be announced at Bouchercon, but, in my opinion, they are all winners.

Congratulations and good luck to the nominees and good reading to the rest of us.

Best First P.I. Novel:

• Loser’s Town, by Daniel Depp (Simon & Schuster)

Private investigator David Spandau, an ex-stuntman familiar with the ins and outs of Hollywood—a smart, tough, and wickedly funny observer of la vie L.A.—finds his patience almost sapped when he's hired to protect actor Bobby Dye from a blackmailing scheme gone wrong. Dye—young, brash, and on the verge of becoming a major star—has been set up by gangster Richie Stella, a nightclub owner and drug dealer with dreams of becoming a Hollywood producer.

• The Last Gig, by Norman Green (Minotaur)

Alessandra Martillo is just another Puerto Rican girl who's run away from the projects in the Bronx until her uncle takes her in and teaches her how to take care of herself. Now she's working for a sleazy P.I., repossessing cars and trolling for waitstaff on the take. But when the head of an Irish mob family, Mickey Caughlan, wants to find out who's setting him up from inside, Al is exactly the woman for the job.

• The Good Son, by Russel D. McLean (Minotaur)

There is something rotten behind the apparent sucide of Daniel Robertson and it’s about to come bursting into the life of J. McNee, a Scottish private investigator with a near-crushing level of personal baggage. James Robertson, a local farmer, finds his estranged brother’s corpse hanging from a tree. The police claim suicide. But McNee is about to uncover the disturbing truth behind the death. With a pair of vicious London thugs on the move in the Scottish countryside, it’s only a matter of time before people start dying. As the body count rises, McNee finds himself on a collision course with his own demons and an increasing array of brutal killers in a violent, bloody showdown that threatens to leave none involved alive.

• Faces of the Gone, by Brad Parks (Minotaur)

A shooting can rattle a city, even if it's gun-choked Newark. Investigative reporter Carter Ross finds himself with gruesome front-page news: four bodies in a vacant lot, each with a single bullet hole in the back of the head. Soon, Carter learns the four victims have one connection, and this knowledge puts him in the path of one very ambitious killer...

• Chinatown Angel, by A.E. Roman (Minotaur)

Chico Santana is a likable, but not perfectly sympathetic New York PI. Hired by a wannabe movie star Kirk Atlas to track down his beautiful cousin, Tiffany, he gets involved with the apparent suicide of Kirk’s maid. He finds out Kirk’s family has a lot of secrets they really don’t want to be uncovered.